Zodiac

For the historical film review I watched the film Zodiac, about the murders in the Sacramento valley during the late 60s and early 70s. The Character who intrigued me the most was Arthur Lee, the character who the main character believed to be the zodiac killer. An exceedingly unnerving character and person, Lee's home is filled with dead animals and weapons and all of the interactions between the other characters and Lee himself are uncomfortable. Lee seems to clearly be hiding something in all of these scenes, which leads the viewer to conclude that Lee was in fact the killer. Unfortunately the police are unable to recover enough evidence to support this claim, and Lee is never arrested. Regardless, even after the movie is over, and the killer is never caught, the director attempts to paint Lee as the villain. In one of the final scenes the main character, a cartoonist for a newspaper in Sacramento, confronts Lee, not by saying anything, but by approaching him in his place of employment and staring at him for a few moments, then leaving without a word. Prior to this scene, the main character had expressed his desire to carry out this action to his wife, saying that the only reason that he was pursuing the zodiac killer so intently was so that even if he could not legally prove who the killer was, he wanted to be able to look the man in the eyes and know that he had done all of the killings.
In a rolling stone article about the film, the reveal that the villain from the movie Dirty Harry was loosely based on the actions of the zodiac killer. The similarities between Zodiac and Scorpio are very noticeable. Both men use a code name and both men refer repeatedly to children, and while the Zodiac is never connected with any attacks on children, that becomes a major part of his rise to fame throughout california. It is unfortunate that the american public has become so obsessed with violence over the past century, because men like the Zodiac killer gain notoriety for committing horrible acts of violence, perhaps something that they had desired through their actions.
In addition to the similarities between zodiac and scorpio, I noticed some similarities between the actors depictions of the two characters Scorpio and Lee. I would not be surprised if the actor who played Lee in Zodiac was told to watch Scorpio in Dirty Harry and try to shape his own performance in that image.
Overall I liked the movie. I thought it provided a balanced interpretation of the events. Although it did basically claim that Lee was the murderer, there were also a couple of other loose ends that are half followed up on by the main character who could also have been the killer, making the movie a complete cliff hanger. Just the fact that the killer is not caught in the end makes it an interesting historical film. Most films in this genre are able to provide closure for the audience, but this one dishes out the opposite. The killer is still out there, and while the one who most fit with the evidence is dead, perhaps he was not the right man and the true killer is still out there continuing his work under the state's radar.